hello everybody! Bonjour tous le monde!
I am trying to learn french, and just wandering if translating texts help to better understand the language.
thanks in advance.
It most definitely does, imo.
Yes, it definitely helps to better understand the language in many aspects when you have to make very accurate and precise translations. I translate professionally and often have to look very deeply at what the intention of the source text is and how to translate it as accurately as possible. Over time it develops a bit of intuition with regards to grammar and implied meaning.
I don’t think it helps much with speaking though. You really have to practice that end, but understanding the language is a very important step to being able to speak it well, and there is certainly some crossover.
Any aspects of studying will help you: listening, reading, translating, speaking and writing.
But you’ll gradually understand that the ‘accurate’ translating is not a translating ‘word by word’, that every language has its own laws and habits in word combinations and phrase forms.
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I know several professional translators, and certainly translating full time has improved their language skills. Of course, spending eight hours a day with a language is bound to have great benefits. So, it is hard to know whether the translation was the key, or the full time immersion in the language.
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I definitely know it does, for me at least. A friend and I learned Latin by doing so. We would think about a topic we wanted to speak about, and then write until we didn’t want to write anymore, and then let our teacher look over it. If you have a friend who is a native speaker who will read it for you, then correct, if need be, then I would definitely do some translations!